Post Expire Affliction
by KillRomantic
Summary: There are people who walk through life undetected and then there are people who leave imprints behind. Theodore Nott had no intention of being seen, however, managed to create impressions regardless.


**Disclaimer: **Nothing is in my possession nor do I claim anything as my own.  
**Author's Notes:** It seems I really enjoy writing one-shots about characters that either a. no one likes (coughChocough) or b. haven't a clue exists (coughTheodorecough).  
Anyway, this story contains a few various Theodore pairings, some more canon than others while the rest are completely one-sided and crack. There isn't much of an optimistic view in this story, however, I find it expected because, after all, he's a Slytherin and I'm pretty sure they're already predestined to misery before they're even born. Sad, I know.  
Getting back on point, every used quote is in French, translated into English under it. This is a one-shot. And lastly, enjoy&review :D

**I. Le monde est un livre dont chaque pas nous ouvre une page.  
**The world is a book; each step opens a page for us.

There is little provided space in this world for happiness. Perhaps that is why it decides to fill earth's small cracks rather than its chasms void of everything except despair and suffering. To easily decipher itself from uglier things and to give people a challenge to find it. The reward always gratifying.

Happiness forms into a woman with thick brown curls, porcelain skin that stretched across thin bones, eyes caged with dispassion, lips dull and unmoving, but her heart is filled with overwhelming pride as she dotes the small child in her hands. She may not love him, but she values him, his heritage; his blood.

This is the closest thing to happiness.

It's bright; red, orange, yellow, green, blue – colors of the sunset bled together. It floods his world and he can see color finally, no longer black and white.

"Love you," he murmurs as she pulls, straightens, and fixes his disordered clothes with blank, detached eyes.

She doesn't answer, instead flattens a crease on his shirt.

Happiness.

**II. Ou j'oublie tout de suite ou je n'oublie jamais.  
**Either I forget right away or I never forget.

He does not want to be a hero, because he isn't. Not that he'd ever be deemed with such a title. He's just a child too ignorant to believe, too blind to know, too dismissing to care.

(_They're right_.)

At the age of five he learns to pull, straighten, and fix his own clothes because his absent father won't and refuses to with lips curled in disgust.

His world no longer contains color. Deprived of even black and white. Just graygraygraygray. Sometimes, he can distinguish green amidst the shadows of the constant color because it's the last thing that lit his mother's eyes.

He's like Harry Potter, but much, much worse.

He smiles when he thinks of her death.

_Father recoils, dirty with Her unshed blood and His malignant smile_.

**III. Il faut beaucoup de naïveté pour faire de grandes choses.  
**You need a lot of naïvety to do great things.

Sneers corrupt his face. He's cruel, a spitting image of his empty father, and Draco is scared shitless.

Draco inherited sharp features and arrogance.

Theodore inherited his mother's thin face and eyes filled with green.

The blond sustains a shiver threatening to run up his spine when he meets the disengaged boy with a dead mother and equally dead, but _living_, father. Despite his evident distaste he raises his hand with his chin inclined, offering his alliance and his purity in hopes of it perspiring to many, many more.

Theodore laughs in response. He does not need alliance or purity.

He needs Malfoy to realize he'll always be _above_ the Malfoy family, therefore, requires Draco to never meet his eyes. He's better than him, after all.

Draco takes this in stride, the same expression fixed on his face when he encounters a dirty Weasley hours later.

**IV.** **L'amour est nu, mais il n'est pas crotté.**  
Love is naked, but it's not muddy.

Pansy Parkinson is ugly. In fact, she's downright beastly.

She's determined to teach Slytherin men (because they can't be boys. Boys are inexperienced and useless) how to love, although, in return they learn less than diligently. Her methods are clumsy and worthless, her efforts idle and eventually futile. Sometimes, she wants to give up, because her grotesque face is enough to entirely banish men's association with her, but she harbors hope for herself. She may never be as beautiful as Greengrass, or as godly as Davis, maybe even Zabini if she insisted on taking every beauty into consideration, but she's not Millicent Bulstrode and she's obviously _not_ Granger.

She's pure and her blood is **beautiful**.

Theodore remembers when she attempted to waver his solitary preference during their third year.

Honestly, he wanted nothing more than to escape her puckered lips and batted eyelashes but there is no getaway from reality while you're awake. Only dreams can carry you away and he's certain he couldn't have forced himself to sleep then. Hell, he could barely shut his eyes at night. So he alternatively kissed her, hard. Not passionately, just hard. So hard that she'd taste him for the next coming weeks, maybe months even.

Gasps of pleasure and buckled knees were left behind as he slid his hands from her face surprisingly soft and smooth and he threw her a disgusted look that failed to break or even fracture her high demeanor before stalking off to the library.

He stole her first kiss, she stole his first façade.

Deal.

**V. :Ce serpent: dit-il, :est le génie de notre race. Comprends-tu?:  
**'This snake,' he said, 'is the spirit of our race. Do you understand?'

Savagely tearing the raw meat thickened with fresh blood apart it looks something close to what he imagines muggles as. Inhuman and unworldly.

With Longbottom and Potter's hands rising among his he feels more disgusted.

Blaise Zabini is smirking wickedly at him, Zabini's thoughts incidentally mingling with his, and he fails to spare the fellow Slytherin a glance. He then wonders if Zabini knows they're two of a kind and when they're out of earshot of everyone after class, he mutters lowly, "how's father dearest?"

Zabini freezes and he instantly knows Theodore can ruin him.

"Rotting along your mother's corpse, Nott," he sneers back. "How did her face look when she died?"

"Beautiful," answers Theodore. "Far more beautiful than your mother's will be when one of her husbands smartens up and decides to kill her. My mother's beauty is timeless while yours is worn and used."

Blaise then looks like a nightmare, blackened and vicious with little mercy. Pansy overhears them as she passes with Draco and discretely chooses to stay behind and observe Zabini's reaction, purposely dropping her quills and scatters them across the filthy mesh earth. She doesn't expect Malfoy to offer his help and he doesn't, continuing with his walk now alongside Crabbe and Goyle as Pansy remains behind, listening in closely to the two Slytherin men (remember, they're not allowed to be boys).

They take notice of her presence and the tension thins until it breaks at the sound of Zabini's words.

"See you in the common room."

Theodore leaves and Blaise watches, his eyes following Nott disappear into the crowd of dispersing students.

He watches because he knows he can't say anything. Because his mother _will_ die eventually at the hand of her future nameless husband she never loved. Because Theodore's mother was never beautiful to begin with and they both know that. Because, within a few years, he won't see meat being mangled by nothing anymore.

He'll see thestrals.

Maybe they'll fly him down to Hell.

**VI. a différence est l'articulation de l'espace et du temps.  
**The difference is the articulation of space and time.

A strange face to behold, a broken distortion of a gesture, a smile too hideous to be beautiful.

"I want to sit here," she says again, arching a thick eyebrow. Without his consent, she obliges to herself and he wants to shred her apart. To pull out every monstrous string of hair on her head, to crucio every ounce of joy she ever held away, to break every fragile joint in her body, to – "Didn't think you were much of the staring type, Nott."

Its then when he knows she's wants him to hate her, to fuel her misplaced prejudices again.

He vaguely thinks that maybe, if she weren't so full and he so jaded, they could've formed or bridged a common gap between themselves. Because they had nothing in common. And nothing, he knows, is better than _something_ because you can create something from nothing whereas you can't destroy something into nothing. Far too messy.

After giving her a grin she appears taken back momentarily, her suspicions and balled up taunts resting in her diligent throat shattering upon the moment, until he breathes in a beat, "fuck off, Granger."

He doesn't hate her merely because she hates him. He just doesn't want to give her any more satisfaction. In fact, now that he thinks about it, he could love her, maybe.

But then that just wouldn't do. No, no, no.

She's struggling internally, her eyes bulging slightly as she fights not to slap him.

"You can, you know." he hisses, amused. "I'm a bit of a masochist."

The collision is sharp, fleeting, and painful. (_She does slap him, but not because he requested it, because he was rude, vulgar, and deserved it_.) The crowded library stills, eyes drawing to the seated pair, and he smirks as his cheek stings.

A jealous Tracey Davis sets the mudblood's precious books ablaze later, earning a shrill of disgust from Granger and glare passing through the female Slytherin and directly to him.

(That scream's context could've been different, much different, if he weren't a Slytherin.)

**VII. Tout est vérité ; tout est mensonge.**  
Everything is truth; everything is a lie.

Loathing someone on principle by the color of their tie and the symbol on their badge is a bit redundant but doing the alternative is suicide.

Not social suicide, just suicide in general. Because if you don't kill yourself, someone in your House will most certainly take the matter into their own hands.

However, such a rule was naturally bestowed upon current Gryffindors and Slytherins. Not the entire three Houses against Slytherins. Hufflepuff's comprised of leftovers whom are too dense and oblivious to do anything other than mind their own business while Ravenclaw's have their noses stuck to their books to care for anything else.

Still the common hate for Slytherins is rather amusing, in a disappointing, cynical way.

Theodore wants to laugh when Goldstein shoots him a murderous look when the Ravenclaw seats himself the farthest he can possible distance himself from Theodore. The Slytherin smirks when Boot offers his friend an apologetic smile before turning away as Brown adds an ingredient unnecessary to brew the assigned potion.

Theodore and Goldstein work in silence together, their potion turning out effortlessly and Professor Snape rewards them with twenty points to each of their Houses (Ravenclaw a bit more reluctantly than Slytherin).

Anthony brings himself to lift his gaze to look at Theodore for the first time in his life, never once bothering to regard Slytherins before, and his face looks pained almost. Theodore wants to graciously widen his smirk in response, however, masks it with a nonchalant expression instead. He wants to hear what the blond's preparing to say next.

"Erm, good… good, yeah," Goldstein stutters, trips, and humiliates himself. Figuratively speaking, of course. His words were like his movements and they were tense and awkward. "What I mean to say," he corrects, inhaling a steady breath before forcing, "is that, good job for today… and… and yeah."

_He wanted to say thank you_.

It's too evident in his eyes.

Theodore's smirk surfaces and he shrugs, allowing the Ravenclaw to meet with his friends departing the classroom.

"What? Oh, Nott? Yeah, he's a nasty prat. Next time, I'll try to charm Snape out of assigning partners."

Keep your head above water, Goldstein.

**VIII. L'enfer, c'est les autres.  
**Hell is other people.

Theodore's feet are propped on a cushion while he slumps eloquently into his couch, his house rigid and desolate. When his guest arrives his position fails to falter and she glances at him with mild disgust but seats herself in one of the offered chairs.

She isn't the one to dilly dally and prance around important matters, an admirable trait of hers, and she cuts straight to the point. "Malfoy wants to know if you'll be joining him next year."

He smoothly cocks an eyebrow. "I'm presuming Malfoy believes that because my father is imprisoned in Azkaban I'll join the Death Eaters to free him."

"He doesn't need you," she snaps back, rolling her eyes when he smirks. "Besides, he's far too busy to ask you himself. You should be considered lucky he requested I visit you instead of sending an owl over. The Ministry might be controlled but Aurors still intercept mail every now and then. I'm certain they'd be interested in a letter from the Malfoy manor."

"You sound as if you've taken a fancy in Malfoy, Daphne," he prods.

She looks indifferent, shrugging. "My sister has, really. But you're avoiding the point. Are you joining or not?"

Theodore shifts himself off his seat, facing her as he asks, "have you?" Without hesitation Daphne pulls her blouse's long sleeve back and displays her mark repulsive against her otherwise unmarred flesh. She doesn't scoot away when he steps towards her, gingerly running his thin finger over it and he looks disappointed. "Your fate will be like Bellatrix's."

She scoffs and pulls her arm away from his scorching touch. "I'm not in love with Voldemort, Theodore. Only a fool would be. He harbors no feelings besides greed, you know that."

"Obviously," he replies, "but I feel your beauty will go to waste in the war, like Bellatrix's. She's nothing short of insanity now."

"Everyone's a bit insane," murmurs Daphne. "I mean, in order to participate in the war. Especially since Potter, God's gift to earth, is on the opposing side."

"You have no faith in what you're fighting for," muses Theodore.

She averts his gaze and he wonders if she knows what the war's outcome will be. _A hero will not live forever but will certainly live until the villain falls_. Oh, does she ever.

"You can still fight, without a mark," she says, "you're in Slytherin, after all. They'll assume which side you're on."

"If you insist, Greengrass."

She winces at his address and she wants to tell him now more than ever that, even if Tracey Davis is her closest friend and dreams of marrying him one day, that she's in love with him. Still, she doesn't. Theodore was never the one to love and she reluctantly acknowledges that she isn't any different from the rest of the girls he knows; acquaints himself with. Besides, it's already too painfully obvious that she does and she can read the amusement etched on his face while her unrequited love dances about her feet, whispering of her unfortunate choices. She then leaves with the last of her heart suspended in front of him and, as expected, he doesn't take it.

(When the war is over and Voldemort is completely decimated with no bones – or even particles of dust – left behind in his horrific remembrance, she's trialed and convicted with a lifetime sentence to Azkaban and her sobs toll off in the distance placed along side of her forbidden spells. Terry Higgs tells her one night, his cell across from her; with his face filthy of vomit and grunge and his hands so dirty they're black, that he loves her and her heart shatters. Theodore, although residing in his deceased father's house miles away from her location, sees it. He smiles at the sound of it breaking, toasting to himself for successfully keeping his world gray.)

**IX. On ne détruit que ce que l'on remplace.  
**We destroy only what we replace.

"Kill her," orders a Death Eater as he charges forward in hopes of defeating Potter himself.

Theodore stares at the whimpering girl lying helplessly in front of him, her hair pooled against Hogwarts' floor, and she's staring at him with wide eyes anticipating the green light surely going to ensue within the next second.

Green. That's all he sees then. Green. Green. Green.

"_Avada Kedavra_!" he recites and she flinches; cowers.

Susan Bones pries her eyes open minutes later, realizing a body had fallen beside her and she screams when she identifies it. It's Colin Creevey and she looks back at the Slytherin incredulously but he's already gone.

**X. Et c'est dans cette mort que je trouve la vie.  
**And it is in this death that I find life.

It's five years later during a late afternoon when he sees green again.

Theodore's life is taken by Creevey's younger brother, broken and missing. There are tears running down his pale, round face that's somewhat hollow and deprived. His arm is raised and his wand is held in between his grubby fingers with vengeance crossing his unsystematic vision.

"_My brother_!" is all Theodore hears the boy cry and he goes without a fight.

He hasn't been living anyways.

Weightless and free he glides to what he thinks is Heaven, maybe Hell, even. He wasn't sure where he'd find himself once his world collapsed, but wherever this is, where clouds are growing and sunlight is minimal and screams are captured against the wind, is nice. It reminds him of home and he wants to laugh to himself but he's forgotten how to and instead he allows his gaze to stretch across the white horizon.

He sees black and white again and he's content.

Seeing color only brought him disappointment, seeing gray teased him into the darkness, and seeing green had ultimately killed him in the end.

_A smile splits her fragile lips and she peels out of her former skin. "__…I love you too_._"_

He scoffs. It's too late for that.


End file.
